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Cricket

Strauss wants struggling England to show some "fight"

24/05/2008

England batsman Andrew Strauss urged his team-mates to show some "fight" after they were outplayed by New Zealand at Old Trafford on Saturday.

The Kiwis ended day two of the second Test in a commanding position after they racked up 381 for nine in their first innings thanks to a superb 154 not out from Ross Taylor.

They then added to their advantage by reducing England to 152 for four, with Kevin Pietersen (22) and Ian Bell (4) the not out batsmen at the crease.

Strauss contributed 60 to the England score, but he admitted that the slow nature of the pitch and assistance to spin made it hard to score on. He was still adamant his team-mates were good enough to get close to the New Zealand total.

"It was a tough day at the office, hopefully we'll come back but we're going to have to fight really hard," said Strauss. "You've got to look to be positive, to run hard, but Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen generally look to be positive anyway.

"Sometimes you have to take your medicine and say 'well bowled' just make sure you don't get out and hope scoring will be easier at the other end.

"It's not a massive total but we want to get past and from 140-odd for four we've got a lot of work to do, but if we fight hard we can get ourselves in a good position," added Strauss.

England will now look to Pietersen to play a similar innings to the one played by Taylor, which included seven sixes. But Pietersen will consider himself lucky to be still to be batting after he was given not out when he looked to be out plum lbw off the bowling of Daniel Vettori.